I’m going to be blunt. If your website is more than 3 years old, you need a “new website.” It’s like wearing the same outfit for 3 years over and over, it’s just not going to look as good as it did when you first bought it. And if you’re tired of looking at it, chances are so is everyone else.
So, what do I mean by “new website”? Well, it depends. If your website is already a CMS like WordPress or Joomla, a “new website” is just a facelift. Just as technology changes quickly, so does website styling. It doesn’t take long for a website to look old and outdated and it’s a relatively easy procedure.
Now, if you have really been holding out and still have an old html website, a “new website” is a pretty big deal and can be fairly costly. And, the benefits far outweigh the price. Just imagine there are two department stores right next to each other. The prices are the same and they sell the same merchandise. They are so close, you don’t even have to get out of your chair to walk from one store to the other. Let’s look around…
The store on the left just looks old. And when you get inside, it’s hard to find things. There’s no one around to ask questions. There’s a sign that points to something you want, but when you get there, there’s nothing there, or it’s not what the sign said. And if do find what you’re looking for, the price on the sign is different than the price tag.
The store on the right is just beautiful. It’s easy to find things. There’s plenty of ways to find what your looking for. Every time you turn around, there’s someone there to help. Everything is exactly where it is supposed to be. And every time you turn around there’s another sign helping you find just what you wanted. What a pleasure!
Whew! Glad I’m out of that old store!
So, where would you go? To the old store, or the new store?
Also, chances are your HTML site is not mobile friendly. Search engines are now giving “demerits” for sites that are not mobile friendly.
Think about it while you review this list of some of the features and time-savers of having a high functioning CMS eCommerce website.
- Automatically take orders and calculate shipping & sales tax.
- Automatic order confirmation, order processing, and order completion emails to you and your customer.
- Integration with PayPal makes shipping a breeze.
- Offer free shipping (such as “Free shipping with orders over $100″…a great way to increase sales!).
- Offer flat rate shipping, or make real-time calculations.
- Limit your shipments to specific countries, or open your store up to the world.
- Print & view sales, inventory, coupon usage and sales tax reports.
- Easily integrate with PayPal or take check orders.
- Put items on sale for a specific time and feature those items on your site.
- Choose and display featured products in a home page slider, so your customers don’t have to hunt for the really choice items.
- Create coupons that can be used on the website. Give the coupon codes away at events for increased sales and exposure.
- Create product categories and customized shipping classes.
- Automatically display up-sells and cross-sells for each product.
- Sell groups of products.
- Create visually stunning product galleries.
- Sold items will automatically be removed from inventory.
- Automated website backups.
- High-powered security set-up to automatically keep your site secure.
- Automatic image optimization.
- Contact form.
- Google Analytics Dashboard to view the statistics of visits to your site.
That’s a lot, and I’ve only skimmed the surface. Moving from an HTML website to a CMS like WordPress is all about organizing, beautifying, and automating your website to increase sales and save time so that you can spend more time paddling down the river.
Just do it.